Saturday, July 19, 2014

A Sound of Thunder (2005)

Director: Peter Hyams

Writers: Ray Bradbury, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Gregory Poirier

Composer: Nick Glennie-Smith

Starring: Edward Burns, Ben Kingsley, Armin Rohde, Heike Makatsch, Jemima Rooper, David Oyelowo, Wilfried Hochholdinger, August Zirner, Catherine McCormack, William Armstrong

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Evolve or die.

Plot: When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways.



My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I'm a fan of Hyam's work (so far) which is why I sought this out, that and I picked this up at a yard sale for a dollar.  The cast does a fine job with what starts out being a pretty damn good movie.  I really dug the premise with having a time traveling safari. It's funny seeing Ben Kingsly with big white hair, looking like they tried to get Malcolm McDowell but he wasn't available.  The CGI is dodgy but I'm not going to fault them for that because that's probably a budgetary limitation and I understand.  If everything else works then I don't care.  The problem I had was when the story turned towards the business of dealing with the 'time waves' and the ever-changing current world as the ripples of time alter everything.  That's when it went into over-the-top-action-movie mode.  As the story went, it was underwhelming and that's about how the picture stayed until the end but I'll be damned if the cast didn't give it everything they had.  In fact, everyone behind the camera did, too.  My only complaint, really, is with the story.  It's a well-made film.  I guess I just wish they'd made a different second half.  The only extras on the DVD are two trailers for the film.  A commentary would be nice...not that I'd ever get around to listening to it with everything else I've got.

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